A Theology of Divine Vulnerability: The Silence That Gives Light

A Theology of Divine Vulnerability: The Silence that Gives Light understands confidence in the idea of God to rest largely on three claims. The first is that God is responsible in some quite fundamental way for the existence of the universe—for the fact that there is anything at all. The second is that God’s own existence, and essential goodness, are not vitiated by the presence of evil in the world. And the third is that God knows we are here and shares fully, somehow, in the joys and pains of transient life. Peter Hooton considers these claims on the whole sympathetically. He prefers—to traditional Christian views of God’s omnipotence—a more nuanced understanding of God’s power and draws on a rich plurality of voices to describe God as much more loving than wrathful, as persuasive rather than coercive, as more passible than impassible, and the Christian’s relationship with God as essentially a compassionate participation in the reality signified by the crucified and risen Christ.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgments Introduction Chapter One: What Does It Mean to Say that God Created the Heavens and the Earth? Chapter Two: About God’s Providence and Power Chapter Three: Only the Suffering God Chapter Four: Death and After Chapter Five: God in Human Form Chapter Six: The Silence that Gives Light Chapter Seven: Christianity in a World of Religions Chapter Eight: One Realm Bibliography About the Author

About the Author :
Peter Hooton is adjunct research fellow in public theology at the Australian Centre for Christianity and Culture on Charles Sturt University (CSU)’s Canberra campus.

Review :
Can one still believe in God in a world filled with evil and suffering? In conversation with the Christian tradition and many of its contemporary practitioners on a range of issues, such as science and religion, evil and the nature of God, death and the meaning of life, and the relationship between Christianity and the world’s religions, Peter Hooton provides a pointed answer: yes. He makes the case that a vulnerable, suffering God is the basis for a renewed and vibrant faith in God and Christian witness in the twenty-first century. In so doing, he offers a thought-provoking and convincing investigation that offers a unique way of thinking about God and world, and provides food-for-thought for anyone who wishes to seriously wrestle with these questions.